![]() Could genius be a function of the physical appetite structures of the limbic brain? by Win Wenger, Ph.D. ![]()
A genius is one who goes beyond definition and well beyond how others around
him or her conceptualize, perceiving significant facts and relationships which later turn out to be valid.
That rather conventional statement is descriptive, but doesn't immediately
tell us how the genius got that way.
Sometimes it's a matter of stumbling into a knack, as described in my book,
Beyond Teaching And Learning. This
happens even when the original knack is forgotten which got that genius
started. Sometimes on the smallest thing, or on one thing or another, our
genius in most cases got on a roll, stayed on a roll, when he fell off he
got quickly back on that roll, and stayed on that roll until so much of what
he was doing had fallen into being part of that roll that others began
recognizing him as a genius. (Or her.)
In such a case, the genius is one who finds a good horse and rides it
farther and better than others can, even if that horse was at first merely a
colt.
The parable of the talents comes also to mind as being apt in this context,
as reportedly told by Jesus. [In the story, a rich man unevenly distributed talents a type of money or coin to three of his servants, to tend and build toward greater wealth. One spent it all, wasting it. One received the most ten talents but hid them under a bushel instead of putting them to good use. These first two servants were summarily dismissed. The third servant, hailed as the "good and faithful steward," had put his talent to good use, multiplied it and came back with more than he started with.]
We can compare types of genius throughout our history. These range from the
idiot-savant "Rainman" type, a narrow splinter kind of genius, through the
popular notion of a lopsided tortured fractional genius like Mozart or Van
Gogh, to the comprehensive holistic genius such as Bach or Bacon, who is
really good at nearly everything.
Studies suggest that for the most part and contrary to the popular notion
people who are really good at one thing tend also to be good at many other
things.
How do some people soar miles beyond anyone else? Is it something about them,
or is it some little trick or knack of thinking or looking or operation that
they somehow stumbled into and got started on?
If it was in them, it usually wasn't a matter of somehow-innate superior
intelligence. (Indeed, fractionalized Rainmen may find it hard to button
their own shirts.) We all know highly intelligent and even well-informed
people who definitely are not geniuses! What distinguishes genius from
these?
Limbic staying power.
It is the "fire in the belly" that theater people and professional athletes
often speak about. True giftedness seems to be mainly a function of the
physical appetite structures of the limbic brain.
In fact, the times of physical appetite change adolescence and middle age
are the times also in which we lose most of our really gifted people into
being merely intelligent and well-informed.
Fasting is an avenue in many
different disciplines toward attaining extraordinary mental and/or
intellectual effects.
An association between intellectual sharpening and
physical hunger makes sense in bio-evolutionary survival terms in more
rigorous times, all of us were descended from those who got sharper when
hunting was poor.
Also, though I'm unaware of any formal study on this,
there's a highly apparent incidence of appetite disorders among many of the
gifted, which you may rather easily notice upon attending any substantially
sized Mensa group meeting.
In other words, the unusual level of drive and persistence so often needed
to override the usual discouragements originates in unusual conditions in
the physical appetite structures of the brain. The counterpart to this in
fractionated rainmen is their slipping past inhibiting higher(?) mental
functions which, in their case, simply are missing. In either instance,
we see someone manifesting unusual abilities by somehow getting past the
usual inhibiting factors.
Lots of people find knacks of one kind or another, but only a few have not
only gotten on that roll but stayed there and returned to there until that
roll became a grand revolution... Fire in the belly... as persistent as
appetite drives themselves.
What kind of genius? What kind of knack? There is some room in which to
find them the undiscovered country which lies within and around every one
of us:
We live in a richly holographic universe, everything affecting everything
else, everything relating to everything else. Despite all that is now known
in our civilization, we are only a few steps, or a few observations, away
from centuries-worth of new science and new civilization, no matter what
direction we turn to look.
![]() Email comments to Win Wenger An earlier version of this article appeared on the Article Brain website,
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